In the early part of the next summer, that dreadful malady, the small pox, made its awful visitation to Morris Grump’s house, and like a terrific fiend laid its talons alike on young and old, and remorselessly swept them off to the grave. The two younger daughters were the first infected; and in a few days after, two more were taken ill, and Morris’s house presented the appearance of an hospital. Morris’s wife, as well as himself, from the excessive anxiety natural to parents in such unhappy circumstances for the preservation of her offspring, took, like thousands of others, the wrong course, and literally killed them with kindness; while the humbler inmates of the house, who had no share in her affection or concern, were as truly saved by absolute neglect. Thus, while without judgement or advice, except of those who were as ignorant as herself, she sought every delicacy to indulge and pamper the appetites of her own afflicted ones, giving them spiced ale sugared, and even wine, in her terror of losing them, she suffered the poor apprentice Twm, who was also deep in the small pox, to languish unattended, without enquiring after him, or sending him the common necessaries of life, utterly indifferent whether he lived or died. On the first appearance of this disorder, the farmer’s ploughman left him and went home, so that except Grump’s own family, there were none in the house but Twm, who, if preserved from the small pox ran great danger of starvation. His bed was an old hop-sack half filled with oat-chaff, and his covering an old tattered blanket and a musty rug, which had filled similar offices for the horses. His bed-chamber being a portion of the hay-loft, poor Twm remained hours and days without food, groaning away his time, and until blinded by his malady, amusing himself by counting the number, and pondering on the formation, of the cobwebs that hung like sorrow’s garlands from the mouldy beams and rafters, while the squeaking of the mice in the rotten thatch, served for music. At other times, somewhat nerved by the cravings of his stomach, his weak hands would rustle in some pease-straw that happened to be placed there, and now and then, to his infinite joy, find an unbroken pea-shell that had escaped the searching of the flail, which, in spite of the soreness of his hands and mouth, he would open, and with avidity devour its contents.